Lentil Sambar Redux

byRobinonApril 5, 2012

I love lentils any way I can get them — in a soup, a pilaf, chili, pasta sauce, or even burgers. One of my all time favorite lentil recipes is the lentil sambar recipe in Vegan Fire and Spice. I’ve posted the sambar recipe before here. You can also find the recipehere on FatFreeVegan along a lovely photo by Susan Voisin (check it out if you haven’t seen it before).

I made this delicious sambar again recently, but I added extra lentils to make it even heartier and thicker. The nice thing about a sambar is that it can be used almost like a condiment when served with Indian dosas, but it’s also terrific served like a soup (if made thinner) or like a stew over rice, when made thicker, which is my preference. You can cut the vegetables larger or smaller, too.

I served the sambar alongside potato “dosadillas” (my “quick-fix” solution to enjoying the flavor of dosas by using tortillas when there’s no time to make actual dosas) and some spicy mint chutney.

I ended up with some leftover potato filling and the next day I served the lentil sambar as a stew with a large spoonful of the potato mixture on top and some cooked spinach as well. With some warm naan and more of that spicy mint chutney on the side, it made an amazingly delicious meal as you can see in the photo at the top of this post.

I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I do and if you haven’t tried it yet, I hope you will soon!